London

New York

Cycling to success

Reaching roughly three million people, Equator’s work on Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries and Tour de Yorkshire was shortlisted for a Herald Digital Business Award.

Inspiration

The Grand Depart

As a legacy project to The Grand Depart in Yorkshire for 2014’s Tour de France, Yorkshire Bank launched a partnership scheme with Welcome to Yorkshire, aimed at giving people across county the chance to get on a bike and enjoy everything that cycling has to offer.
In order to create awareness for the scheme, named Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries (YBBL), and the fact that members of public could borrow bikes for free from these libraries, we created a suite of social and on-site content to raise awareness of this fantastic project, addressing the two angles: those looking to get rid of a bike and those looking to borrow a bike.

Getting into Gear

The most important need from Yorkshire Bank was to raise awareness of the brand-new YBBL initiative. The challenge, therefore, was to find the people who were interested in the bike libraries. In order to raise awareness for these projects, events and the overall campaigns, sophisticated targeting techniques were put in place. These included creating mirror audiences of those interested in the subject, and the use of retargeting pixels using data from the Tour de Yorkshire website. Use of such tools allowed us to be able to reach those who find the posts of interest.

Ideas

Discover your world on a bike

As part of the suite of content, Equator created a video campaign for YBBL, entitled ‘Discover your world on a bike’, took a look at the different types of cyclists: the daily commuter, the fresh air enthusiast, the child and the stunt-lover – showing that no matter what your cycling skill or experience, Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries can provide a bike for you. The short, light-hearted video aimed to raise awareness of the bike libraries initiative, and that there is the opportunity to borrow a bike for free, giving everyone an opportunity to get back in the saddle. As well as being shared on social media, this video played on a big screen at Tour de Yorkshire, reaching almost two million people.

Big Numbers

Finish line

Since launch, over 4,500 bikes have been donated to the growing number of donation stations.
Due to its continued success, YBBL now enjoys the backing from two cycling heroes – world champion Lizzie Armitstead and 2016 Tour de France white jersey winner Adam Yates. These ambassadors for YBBL created videos showing their support for the project, which were shared on social in advance of the 2015 and 2016 Tour de Yorkshire events, respectively. These videos helped to both raise awareness of and highlight the campaign.
Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries was even sponsor for the final day of 2016’s Tour de Yorkshire – a milestone moment for the campaign.

Looking to take your content marketing campaign to a new level? We can help.